The Pope Canceled His Meeting With Russell Crowe :-(

Paramount has been trying super hard to get the religious community’s approval for their Noah movie, going so far as to add a disclaimer to all of their marketing, lest people think Darren Aronofsky’s version of the story about a boat that carried every animal on Earth isn’t true enough. As part of their God squad outreach program, Russell Crowe (who had previously invited the Pope to a screening on Twitter) and Aronofsky were tentatively scheduled to meet with Pope Francis (aka Cool Pope) this Wednesday. But now, according to Variety, The Pope has canceled. I’d like to think he sent a hand-written note reading, “Gotta bail, doin’ Pope shit. Keep It Real, P-Frank.”

Pope Francis has nixed a meeting with the creative team behind “Noah,” including star Russell Crowe, director Darren Aronofsky and Paramount vice chair Rob Moore, which studio executives had been scrambling to schedule as a photo-op, Variety has learned.

The meeting was never fully confirmed, but tentatively on the calendar for Wednesday at 8:30 a.m. in the VIP section so the Pope could figuratively lend a blessing to the $125 million Biblical epic. The reason the Vatican cancelled it, according to a source, is over concerns word would leak, causing a spectacle as Crowe and Aronofsky landed in Rome. [Variety]

Wise choice. I’d like to think the wiser folks at the Catholic Church were thinking, “You know, last time you got an Australian to play a Biblical hero, he got caught on tape screaming at a chick to blow him, so we’re going to go ahead and take a ‘wait-and-see’ approach on this one.”

This throws off a really strong “prepper” vibe to me. They may have hit a rich vein here.

Aaaand how ’bout all the animals calmly marching/crawling/slither/flying onto the Ark? If for some reason I was a person who would go to see this movie I imagine that’s the scene where I just get up and leave the theatre feeling a little silly.